On Call
by WanderingSnake
Summary: this is my first fic. It's about a medic on Cairo who saves an elite and is assigned to guard him, but when he gets sent down to earth, decides to take the alien with him.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: I don't own Halo, Just my characters._

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On Call

**Chapter 1**

**Earth Defense Platform, Cairo**

**10.20.2552 (Military Calendar)**

_Shit._

PFC Nate Baker swore as the first Boarding craft latched on to the hull, sending all of his instruments clattering to the floor, luckily he'd just finished stitching up his friend, Private Adrian Perez, sitting in front of him, or that could have caused more trouble.

"Damn, did you hear that?"

"'Course I did, I ain't deaf" He replied.

"I guess we better get upstairs before the fighting starts."

"All right, but don't get too far ahead, all they give us medics are lame pistols." He said.

"Sure thing man."

As they headed for the door the klaxons started to wail, _like it won't be hard enough to fight without those things screaming at me._ After they got upstairs they past the bridge, and were shocked to see the Master Chief come out of it.

"God damn, would ya look at that, I didn't know _he _was here!"

"Yeah man, didn't you see it on the screens?"

"No"

They followed the Chief down the steps, through the makeshift armory, and into the Foyer, Just as the covenant started burning their way through it, after a moment the door exploded inwards, the grunts all started pouring through, closely flowed by a couple of elites.

Seeing as he was armed only with an SMG and his pistol, he decided to take on some of the grunts and let the Chief take the elites.

After they were all down, they headed for the door.

"Hey! Get back here marines!" Johnson yelled as he started firing on two new elites that had dropped down, almost on top of them.

"Shit, ADRIAN, get back!" He yelled at his friend, who seemed a bit disoriented.

He grabbed his arm and pulled him back behind a metal barricade. They waited a moment, after which Johnson stopped firing. "Baker! Perez! Get down there and police their weapons, I got a feeling we're gonna need it, everyone else, get moving!"

"Yes, sir." they said together. They all headed for the door, Adrian stopping at the piles of Grunt corpses, Nate going for the elites sprawled in the corner, as he looked them over, he began to think, _I never really hated them, in fact, I wouldn't mind meeting one, if it weren't for the fact that I'd probably wind up dead._ It annoyed him to no end how everyone else always referred to them as _it_ instead of he or she, as if they were nothing more than mere animals to be slaughtered. _How did that old saying go? About respecting your enemies, and how being overconfident could get you killed? Oh well._

He had almost finished checking them over, with about as many guns as he could carry, when he noticed one laying on his stomach, and thought there was something different about him, but he just couldn't place it, and then he realized, _Holy shit! Is he still breathing?_ Against all better judgment, and that little voice in his head telling him it was a bad idea, he decided to move closer to him. As he rolled the Elite over, he noticed what must have happened, he'd been shot in the lower leg, causing him to fall forward and hit his head on a nearby pillar, knocking him out.

"Hey Sarge! This one's still alive!"

"What do I care, just finish him!"

"But sir…"

"But what?!" Johnson said, marching right up to him.

"What's the honor in that, haven't you ever heard of Chivalry, sir?"

"Chivalry? What kind of crazy fruit loop are you?"

"Come on, sir"

"Fine, but if he wakes up on you, I ain't saving your ass."

"You got it. Sir"

As he bent back over the Elite, he pulled out his med kit and gave him a dose of anesthesia, just to make sure.

"Hey Perez, give me a hand with him!"

"All right."

He grabbed the Elite's right arm and draped it over his shoulder as Perez did the same with the left, and began to half carry him, half drag him down the hall back toward the sick bay.

"Hey Nate, why do you care so much about this guy?"

"I don't know, I've just always wanted to meet one." He said. "Meet one? Why? If I ever met one, I'd shoot it before I'd bother talking to it."

"_Him_"

"What?"

"_Him_, not _it_."

"Fine, him, whatever."

After several more moments of bickering, they arrived at the med bay doors and shifted the Elite around awkwardly so that Nate could scan his ID badge. In moments they were inside and had set the unconscious alien down on one of the beds.

"Well, I guess that's good enough." Nate said

"It's all the help he's getting from me. I still don't know why you care about him so damn much."

"Because I, unlike you, was raised to judge the individual, not the race. Anyways, I can take it from here, you get back up-stairs."

"Fine by me, I'll see you later, if your little friend here doesn't wake up in the meantime."

As he left, he wondered for the millionth time why his friend bothered.

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Palo 'Rakamee's head swam, dark images swirling in and out of view, his head ached horribly, which was only worsened by the new images, harsh white light, he could see blurred figures, but none he recognized.

_How did this happen? How did I get here?_ He wondered. Then one of the figures in the images drew nearer.

_A human? By the Prophets! The battle!_ He remembered it now, they had been sent on a mission to destroy the vermin's orbital stations, he had been on the first dropship, he remembered. He struggled to remember more, he willed his mind to cooperate, they had melted through the first bulkhead and had been met by heavy fire on the other side. He remembered, he had begun to try flanking the humans, using their inferior computer terminals as cover, when he had felt a sharp pain in his left ankle and had fallen, that was how he had gotten here. _Here_, the harsh image intensified at the thought, it grew larger, until finally it consumed his entire view, he moaned, and began to feel things, a tightness on his wrists and legs, as he slowly regained consciousness.

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Nate had been working on the Elite's ankle for about half an hour, there really wasn't much to be done; after he had worked the bullet out it was just a matter of filling the hole with biofoam and sealing it with a bandage. As soon as he was done, he was just about to go back to the small office in the corner of the bay when he heard the beeping of the Elite's monitors quickening, normally he wouldn't have even hooked up a monitor for a quick treatment, but he wasn't sure how large a dose of sedatives to give to someone as large as an Elite, so he'd hooked him up just in case.

_Guess I didn't give him enough, oh god what do I do?!_

He quickly ran back to the bed to make sure the restraints were as tight as could be, and then, he waited.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**Earth Defense Platform, Cairo**

**10.20.2552 (Military Calendar)**

As Palo woke, the details of his environment became clearer; He was in a long narrow room lined with beds, a screen hung on the wall above him displaying his heart rate, blood pressure, and other vitals. He became aware of the straps securing him to the bed as his eyes came to rest on the human standing in front of him.

"Vile filth! Why have you imprisoned me here?!" he demanded as he struggled to break the restraints holding him down.

" You might as well stop, struggling won't get you anywhere pal." The human said.

"Release. Me. Now." He said menacingly.

The human just chuckled, " I'm afraid I can't do that, now you better settle down before I put you back under" he said, holding up a large syringe. "You're gonna be here for quite awhile, so you may as well lighten up a little."

"Then kill me now, I would rather die than be trapped in your company." He spat back at the vermin as he sat next to him on the side of the bed, watching indifferently as the Elite struggled to free his hands so as to close them around his neck.

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Nate watched the Elite's futile attempt at freeing himself with an amused look on his face and placed his hand on the alien's shoulder, but quickly had to remove it to avoid being bitten, prompting a disgusted look from the Elite. "Don't you dare touch me." He growled.

"Or what, you gonna try and bite me again?" he said, this time giving the Elite a slap on his side, causing him to jerk away angrily.

"I'm warning you." He said

"Oh, please."

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They continued arguing for over an hour before the Elite finally began to realize that he really wasn't going to be leaving anytime soon, and had calmed down enough to be untied and marched to a cell in the station's brig, where he spent the next week, which dragged by excruciatingly slowly, until the last day of the week, when Nate came by with some news.

"Hey, guess what, you lucky bastard."

He sighed "what."

"I've been given some new duties on this station."

"Really? I don't suppose these duties would be moving you away from me?" Palo said.

"Nope, closer."

"Uggh, how much closer?"

"How much closer does Prison Watch sound to you?"

"Too close."

"I've told you once I've told you a million times, Lighten up, We're gonna be working together for quite awhile so we may as well get along, especially now that I'm in charge of how comfortable your stay is here." Nate said.

"Perhaps"

"Well, you just give that a thought while I run down to the galley to get us something to eat."

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As he worked his way through the station's interior toward the galley, but had to stop short by a Sergeant.

"Baker! There you are, where the hell have you been?" he said

"The brig, sir."

"The brig, what for?"

"Guard duty, sir."

"Right well, you've got new orders, the battle planet side's gotten worse, all medics and support staff we can spare are being sent down."

"But what about my prisoner?"

"Do I look like I care what you do with that walking corpse?"

"Fine, sir"

"Now get ready."

_Planet side? Oh man, how could this get any worse_ was the main thought running through his head as he made his way back to the brig with their food. He arrived to find Palo lying on his back, he sat up as he held out his tray.

"Well pal, looks like your gonna get out and stretch your legs sooner than we thought."

"How?"

"I'm being shipped planet side, and you're coming with me."


	3. Chapter 3

**Just a quick mention, I've been reading halo fics for a long time now, and it has just come to my attention that, unconsciously, I've been following bits of the story line from one of the stories that inspired me to write, _Unusual Alliance _by Reef-shark. So if you like this and want to read more like it, give him a visit, along with his new prequel, _Unusual Alliance: Arrival. _Now, on with the show!**

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**Chapter 3**

**Aboard Pelican Gamma 7-42, en route to New Mombassa**

**10.27.2552 (Military Calendar)**

Nate looked around the cabin, squinting in the semi-darkness at the few others seated around him, most of them, he noticed, were glaring at the large alien cuffed and shackled to the seat next to him. The only light in the cabin came from the open door to the cockpit, which glowed with reflected light from the Earth's surface, but it was enough to see the looks of pure hate directed at Palo, who shifted uncomfortably in his cramped seat. As they began the final approach to New Mombassa, the pilot came on the intercom.

"Alright listen up marines, touch down is in five minutes, and as soon as we hit dirt I want that split-chin bastard off my ship, or he's gonna find himself getting spaced on the way back." (This prompted several smirks from the others, and a resentful huff from Palo)

As they landed, the marines hurried to the back hatch, hoping to make Nate and his charge the last off the ramp, as Palo reached the edge the pilot gunned his engines, making Palo fall several feet as the ramp flew out from under him.

Nate helped him up, "you alright?"

"Fine." He huffed. They looked back at the disappearing dropship and scanned their surroundings, they were in the middle of a large street, or one as large as you could find in a rural area.

"Alright, let's get moving" said their unit leader, Lance Corporal Picoli, who had a knack for getting in trouble. Their unit, which was made up of six medics and a squad of marines as their escort, moved into an adjacent alley.

"I saw fighting in this direction when we were on our way in, so that'll be our best bet, but we need to move fast to get there in time, they'll have plenty of wounded and if we don't get there soon there might not be a battle to get to."

"Alright, hey Palo, think you can keep up wearin' those chains?" Nate asked

"What do you think?" he returned.

"Well, we'll see how you do for a little while."

They headed down the alley at something between a jog and a run, moving through block after block of the seemingly dead city, running into nothing more than a pair of jackal scouts. "Bisenti, get your sniper rifle, I need you to take them out quickly and quietly, we don't want to alert anything else out there."

"Got it, sir"

"Good."

Bisenti moved up to the corner and stuck his barrel around the edge, fitting it into a small hole in the corner of the wall, after practicing the back and forth movement several times from one jackal to the other, he fired, The two shots ringing out within a second of each other.

"Go!"

They ran across the square in a tight group, with Nate and Palo bringing up the rear, but by the time they reached the other side Palo had fallen back a full five feet with Nate keeping pace with him. After they had found decent cover in the next, they stopped for a breather, and Nate moved over next to Picoli.

"Sir"

"Private Baker, your alien seems to be gettin' slow, and if he becomes any more of a liability, then I'll shoot him on the spot, understood?"

"I know, sir."

"Then you better find a way to motivate him."

"Well sir, it's the restraints, they're slowing him down…"

"I am _not _having an enemy soldier running free at our backs." He interrupted.

"But that's what's slowing him down."

Picoli sighed, "Damn you Nate" he paused, "oh alright, but if he goes nuts and starts snapping my men's necks I'll shoot _both_ of you, clear?"

"Sir, yes, sir." He replied

Picoli handed him the keys, and Nate moved back to stand in front of Palo, who sat leaning up against the wall, "Picoli says I can unlock you, but you gotta behave, okay?"

"Whatever it takes to get me out of these shackles."

Nate began removing the restraints, much to the displeasure of the marines around him, and from then on, they made it known any way possible.

As they got closer, they started to see, and hear, more signs of the battle raging ahead, however, they also noticed that the sounds of plasma weapons were starting to overwhelm the sounds of human weapons, _oh that can't be good_ Nate thought as they began to speed up, and when they emerged on a platform overlooking the main battle they stopped dead, their mouths hanging open in awe at the sight before them.

"I'll be _Damned."_


	4. Bad News

Still no story sorry, but I'm afraid I have some bad news, an old friend of mine named Adrian, who I based my character off of, although his last name is not really Perez, was recently arrested and charged with complicity to murder, police are saying that it was gang related. Personally I don't believe a word of it, because Adrian was always the nicest guy, and a very hard worker. He went to championships and won scholarships to half the colleges in this state, there is no way he was part of a gang.


End file.
